cdm72's Full Review: Monster From a Prehistoric Planet
Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie''s plot.
First off, this is all a bit misleading. There is definitely a monster, and it could very well be prehistoric, but the “planet” it comes from is Earth. In fact, a small island in the South Pacific is where its found.
Sent out to sea by the publisher of Playmate Magazine (to celebrate 50 years of publication, the publisher Mr. Funazu wants to create a Playmate theme park full of exotic animals and plants) to collect specimens a boat full of scientists, and one photographer, happen upon a small inhabited island which somehow strangely resembles Funazu’s own scale model of what his theme park will look like. They are welcomed by the natives who praise their arrival in hopes they’ll be able to appease Gappa so the earthquakes that have been frightening them will stop.
One of the lead scientists, Hiroshi, and the photographer, Itoko, find an ancient cave on the island where they are warned not to go by a local boy, Saki. Naturally, they go in anyway and there discover a newly hatched lizard egg. The creature that emerges is one they’ve never seen before so they do the only logical thing, cage it up and bring it back to civilization. All against the tribal chief’s advice. But what do those silly people know, anyway? They don’t even have indoor plumbing.
Once back in Tokyo, the baby Gappa makes headlines, and begins to grow at an alarming rate. But before much study can be made, and more importantly, much money, the elder Gappas come looking for their offspring. Chaos ensues, much of Japan is destroyed, and finally Hiroshi takes over for the stubborn and heedless Funazu and allows the baby Gappa to return to its parents, thereby saving Japan from the wrath of the giant “bird-lazards”.
I’m still wondering where the “planet” part comes in. But whatever.
Man, this was a tedious one. Maybe it’s because I knew it had been made as a satire of the genre, but even at that, it wasn’t particularly funny, although definitely silly in places, however not enough so that it made it any more interesting than any other movie of the same type. The plot is old hat, the effects are typical of the era (1967 Japan), and the scenes are all by the numbers. The monsters attack the city in mindless silence for over 10 minutes, the army comes in, fires some bullets that have no effect. The monsters take refuge under the lake. The scientists coax them out so the military can fire missiles, which also have no effect, and the monsters destroy some more of the city.
MONSTER FROM A PREHISTORIC PLANET could have been any Godzilla or Gamera movie, only with different names. Okay, maybe not Gamera; I’ve seen a few of those and whoever made those movies obviously had access to the higher quality drugs. There’s a line when you’re satirizing something where you have to make the satire obvious without actually just COPYING the thing. And that’s what the makers of this movie did. They weren’t taking any obvious jabs at the genre, unless they consider making a movie so like them is intended as a jab, but for the viewer, it’s just kind of dull. I admit, I “watched” parts of this movie with my eyes closed, resting them for a minute while I listened to the dialogue, because I knew I certainly wasn’t missing any action. I don’t need to see the monsters knock down their 8th building in downtown Tokyo to know they knocked it down, I don’t need to see the jets flying over the city to know they’re going to have no effect, and I sure as hell don’t need to see the characters standing against their studio background looking up at nothing in the air while saying “It’s going to destroy the entire city” to know that’s exactly what they’re going to do.
If I wanted 90 minutes of a badly-costumed actor stomping badly-made models, I’d just go for the king of the genre Godzilla and call it a day. MONSTER FROM A PREHISTORIC PLANET is nowhere near that quality-level, and there’s a reason it’s the only movie of its type the production company, Nikkatsu Corporation, made before their bankruptcy. The classic here is Godzilla, MONSTER FROM A PREHISTORIC PLANET is just a heartless attempt at homage or something. Not classic horror by any means.
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